‘Frankenstein’ Gets a New Title and Official Synopsis

As one of the long-reigning kings of the horror genre – both in literature and film – Frankenstein is a story that has been retold countless times already and will no doubt continue to get adaptations, reboots and sequels a long way into the future. This year’s entry, Stuart Beattie’s I, Frankenstein, failed to make much of a mark and performed pretty dismally at the box office, but next year director Paul McGuigan and screenwriter Max Landis will release their own spin on the Frankenstein story.

The new movie is based less on Mary Shelley’s original novel than it is on the Frankenstein myth that has emerged from decades of movies. James McAvoy (X-Men: Days of Future Past) plays the titular character, while Daniel Radcliffe (Kill Your Darlings) plays a new incarnation of the stock character Igor.

Since the movie can’t just be called Frankenstein (seeing as Universal owns the rights to that title), Twentieth Century Fox has now announced the official title and released a synopsis with some new story details. The movie will be called Victor Frankenstein (keeping it simple), but the synopsis (via Collider) suggests that Igor is the true protagonist.

“James McAvoy is Victor Von Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe stars as Igor in a unique, never-before-seen twist on Mary Shelley’s classic 19th century novel. Told from Igor’s perspective, we see the troubled young assistant’s dark origins, his redemptive friendship with the young medical student Victor Von Frankenstein, and become eyewitnesses to the emergence of how Frankenstein became the man—and the legend—we know today.”

Igor in Mel Brooks’ ‘Young Frankenstein’

Victor Frankenstein isn’t the most exciting title in the world, but it’s understandable that Fox would want to go for something with a little brand recognition. The film also stars Jessica Brown Findlay (Winter’s Tale) as Lorelei, a trapeze artist who works at the same circus as Igor and becomes close friends with him.

The film’s concept certainly has a lot of potential. Since Igor wasn’t in the original novel, his backstory has never really been explored in any of the Frankenstein movies and it would be refreshing to see the master-servant dynamic changed up a bit. Here’s hoping that Landis and McGuigan are able to flesh the character out a bit… so to speak.

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jp 9 months ago

Very underwhelming title. Nobody could come up with something a little more intriguing? Dawn of Victor Von Frankenstein: Age of Frankenstein’s Monster.

“Not the most exciting title in the world”…..Probably not the most exciting movie in the world, either. I need to see a bit more info before deciding if this one is worth my time to watch or not. Just for the record, I loved the original Frankenstein, Bride of, Son of, ghost of, Meets The Wolfman, even Abbot and Costello meet (although House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein were watchable but starting to get underwhelming). I wish they could do a movie more in that vein again. The original book by mary Shelley, however, was boring as a graveyard.

I enjoyed parts of Bram Stoker’s book (the original novel) Dracula. However, there were parts where the author did kind of blah-blah on, and the books could have been shortened a bit and not lost anything significant. Journals and letters can get pretty dry as far as reading goes. I enjoyed the Bela Lugosi Dracula, Christopher Lee Horror of Dracula, and Jack Palance Dracula, each film having it’s own different merits. Some of the more modern Dracula movies did not do much for me, though.

I think they should call it The Modern Prometheus, since that was th subtitle of the original novel. Be a step up from what they have now and it would emphasize with Frankenstein’s desire totally control life and death and how it leads to his undoing, if they wanted to go in a more traditional route with this film I mean.